A San Francisco Superior Court jury
ruled in favor of three ex-Dead Kennedys on Friday (May 19), finding ex-frontman
and label boss Jello Biafra liable for engaging in fraudulent conduct
with malice in his dealings with his former bandmates.

Guitarist East Bay Ray, bassist Klaus
Fluoride, and drummer D.H. Peligro were awarded $200,000 in damages stemming
from a failure on Biafra's part to promote the band's Alternative Tentacles
back catalog, failure to compensate his former bandmates properly through
royalties, and a slew of other complaints. The jury also found the band
collectively owned the band's back catalog rather than Biafra's claim
that the songwriter in each case owned the track. The jury also awarded
punitive damages in the case.

The jury defined malice in reference
to the case as "conduct which is intended to cause injury or despicable
conduct which is carried with a willful and conscious disregard for the
rights of others. Despicable conduct is conduct which is so vile, base,
contemptible, miserable, wretched, or loathsome that it would be looked
down upon and despised by ordinary decent people."

The band formed the artist-friendly
Alternative Tentacles in 1979 as a joint partnership between all four
members. Biafra acquired the label solely in 1986 and was accused of gypping
his former bandmates on royalty rates ever since.

The Dead Kennedys originally sued
Biafra in 1998 after they split from Alternative Tentacles a few weeks
earlier over a royalty dispute. The seven-count suit claimed the Dead
Kennedys were being paid a lower royalty rates than other bands on the
label. Ray was quoted at the time of the lawsuit as saying, "We ain't
gonna work on Biafra's farm no more."